


Purgatory Passion

by JWade



Series: Purgatory Passion [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-02-23 15:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13193355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JWade/pseuds/JWade
Summary: While in purgatory, Dean runs into an archangel who's somehow managed to survive the last few years there. As they look for Cas, they find comfort in each other, but can it last once they get back to the real world?





	1. Chapter 1

Dean wasn’t sure how long he had been stuck here. The days had begun to blur together into one large hunt. Monsters were everywhere; they were hunting him; he was hunting them; he had no idea anymore. All he cared about was finding Cas and getting the hell out of here. He had a vamp pinned against a tree. “Where’s the angel?” he asked. When the vamp didn’t want to answer his questions he just took his head off, only to be tackled by another vamp that he hadn’t noticed. He thought he was a goner before he saw the vamp’s head slide off his neck and looked up to see… “Gabriel!” 

“The one and only. What the hell are you doing here?” Gabriel asked. 

“It’s a long story. What are you doing here?” He asked looking over the archangel who looked more than a little worse for wear. His clothes were hanging limply on his frame, blood and dirt caked through them. His normally blonde hair was pretty close to black at the moment and his skin was in much the same condition, but it was unrecognizably Gabriel. 

Gabriel sighed and reached down a hand to help Dean up. “Didn’t you know? This is where angels go when they die. At least for a little while.”

“What does that mean, for a little while?” Dean asked worriedly, but if Gabriel was still here…

“See, monsters are monsters. When they die in purgatory they are just sent back to the start. Humans are a little different. If you die here you’re dead. Angels…we’re essentially human once we get here. Grace can’t exist in this place.”

“So, if an angel dies here…they’re dead for good?” Dean asked, now full of fear for Cas. 

“Worse than that. Humans go to either heaven or hell when they die for good. Angels…we don’t have souls. We just cease to exist. And angels are hunted for sport here,” Gabriel explained. 

“But…” Dean understood now why Gabriel looked so bad. “We have to find Cas,” Dean said firmly. 

“Cassie’s here?” Gabriel asked wide-eyed, before realizing that of course he was here. Of course, no one came for him. He should have known better, but no. When he heard that there was a human here looking for an angel, he’d let himself hope, but as always, he was just an afterthought if he was ever a thought at all. 

“Yeah. He is. But I think he still has his powers though,” Dean told him, as it dawned on him that he was pretty sure that Cas flew away when they arrived. 

“That’s impossible. His grace would be trapped at the place he died,” Gabriel explained. 

“He didn’t die though,” Dean said. “He was transported here just like I was.”

Well that made things a little better. He hadn’t come here intentionally to save Cas. They had just been blasted here together. “Then I suppose it’s possible, but I hope not.”

“What do you mean, you hope not!” Dean asked angrily. 

“I mean…that there is an escape hatch here. Put in place by my father in case any humans were ever trapped here. You’ll be able to get out. I’m close enough to human that I’ll be able to as well, but if he still has his grace…” Gabriel let the sentence hang waiting for the hunter to pick up on it. 

“Then we’ll just have to find a way. I’m not leaving without him,” Dean said firmly. 

“I’ll think on it while we go, but we really need to get moving. Staying in one place too long is a very bad idea around here. Especially for me,” Gabriel told him, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. 

Over the next few days, Dean was more than impressed with Gabriel’s fighting skills. Now he saw how he had survived here for so long without powers. He would never have imagined Gabriel as much of a fighter. When he mentioned that to Gabriel the archangel scoffed. “I’m an archangel and a pagan god. I’ve trained with the best of both worlds. Of course, I can fight.” Dean could hear the bitterness in his voice and wisely kept his mouth shut. This time. 

It wasn’t until a couple days after that when he realized that Gabriel was more than just a fighter and fighting alone wasn’t enough to keep him alive. When they stopped to rest, Gabriel pulled a sharp rock from his pocket and began to strip his clothes off. Dean opened his mouth to protest before he saw all the scars and scabs littering Gabriel’s body, and watched in shock as the archangel took the sharp rock and began cutting into his skin. When he finally found words, he asked, “What are you doing?” 

“Masking my angel ‘scent’ for lack of a better word. These runes will help muffle anything angel and throw enough other things into the mix to make me harder to track,” Gabriel said as he continued to trace over the barely healing scabs. Once he was finished, he put his clothes back on and they were moving again. 

Dean and Gabriel had found that while they fought like cats and dogs most of the time, when it came to a fight, they worked well together. It wasn’t until they got set upon by a group of eight werewolves and came out on top that the dam broke as Dean grabbed the back of Gabriel’s neck and pulled him in for a hard kiss. Gabriel couldn’t help but respond eagerly to it. He’d been so alone here for so long. The next thing the archangel knew he was pressed against a tree as Dean’s tongue plundered his mouth, and he had no interest in stopping wherever this was going. Soon enough, Gabriel found himself spun around and his pants lowered to his knees as a finger slid into his tight hole. The lack of lube made things a little more difficult as did the fact that Dean was going too fast, but Gabriel could handle a bit of pain, and when he felt the burn of Dean’s cock sliding in, he pressed himself back for more and they set a fast, brutal pace until they were both coming. 

They had barely come down from the high before they were doing their pants back up and on the run again. After that, they regularly stopped for quickies after a fight. Apparently fighting got Dean more than a little turned on, and Gabriel wasn’t complaining at all. It took them almost two months to find Cas, who was definitely surprised to see Gabriel, and even more surprised to find that Gabriel and Dean were somehow together. When Gabriel told them about the portal, Cas insisted that they should go. He wouldn’t be able to use it. 

“I’ve been thinking, and there might be a way,” Gabriel told him. 

“How, brother?” Cas asked hopefully. 

“It’s your grace that’s stopping you from leaving. If we take your grace, you should be able to get through just like I can,” Gabriel told him. 

“What’s the catch?” Dean asked, thinking that was just too easy a solution. 

“Well, one, it might not work at all. Like I said before, grace shouldn’t be able to exist here. If it’s wound too tightly in his vessel at the moment to protect itself, it won’t come out. Two, even if it does come out, it will cease to exist. Forever.”

“And I will never be able to be an angel again,” Cas said sadly. 

“Exactly,” Gabriel told him. “But we can worry about that later. You can think about it on the way. You having powers will be a help to us as we go anyway.”

Both Dean and Cas could see the wisdom in that and they were moving again. It was more than six months of fighting and killing, with Cas making himself scarce whenever Dean and Gabriel began to go at it, before they finally reached the portal. “Okay Cassie. You ready?” Gabriel asked, raising his makeshift blade. 

“No. You two go,” Cas told them. 

“No. We’re not leaving you, Cas,” Dean protested. 

“You will find another way to get me out of here. In the meantime, I can use the methods that Gabriel showed me to stay alive. I won’t give up my grace forever,” Cas said firmly. 

“Cas…” Dean said reaching out to him, but Gabriel took his wrist. 

“It’s his decision,” Gabriel told him gently. 

“No,” Dean shook his head stubbornly. 

“We’ll find another way, Dean. I promise,” Gabriel told them both, pulling Dean towards the portal and they disappeared. Now that Cas had completed the mission he had set himself and got them both here safely, he took flight again to keep ahead of the monsters that were chasing him. Between the fact that he still had his grace and the techniques that Gabriel had showed him, he would be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean and Gabriel appeared in the middle of a forest, and both immediately went into defensive mode, relaxing slightly when no threats were found. Dean turned to Gabriel and glared at him as he started to walk off. Gabriel rushed after him. “Dean. Come on. We’ll find another way. We will,” Gabriel said grabbing Dean’s arm. 

“And if he doesn’t last that long?” Dean snarled as he spun around. “If he dies before we find this mysterious ‘other way’? What then? You left him to die!”

“I gave him everything I could,” Gabriel protested. “It was his decision. You think we should have held him down and cut out his grace to bring him with us?” 

“Damn straight we should have!” Dean yelled. 

“You can’t honestly think that would have worked!” Gabriel snapped. “He still had his powers and we didn’t. He would have just flown away. Or over powered us. Or something. He wouldn’t have let it happen.”

“So, you just decided not to try? Then we should have stayed with him. Helped protect him!”

“Don’t be stupid. He has a better chance of surviving than either of us did. We would have just slowed him down. We did slow him down the entire time he was with us even. At least out here we have a chance of finding a way to get him out. If we had stayed we all would have been doomed,” Gabriel argued heatedly. 

Dean couldn’t actually argue with that reasoning, so he did the next best thing. He grabbed Gabriel and pinned him against a tree kissing him hard. Gabriel knew that was the end of the argument and just drank in the contact like he always had, kissing Dean back with just as much passion, and it wasn’t long before his pants were around his knees and Dean’s hand was wrapped around his length as a finger found it’s way inside him. He returned the favor, pulling Dean’s cock out of his pants as lips and teeth and tongues clashed. When Dean spun Gabriel around and slammed inside him, Gabriel met him thrust for thrust despite the painful burn that spread through his backside. 

Once they were spent, they did their pants back up and Dean said, “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked curiously as he followed. 

“Rufus’ cabin. We’ll get there and call Sam to come meet us and then we’ll figure out how to get Cas.”

A couple days later, just over a day since Dean and Gabriel arrived, Sam opened the front door and took a few steps inside before Dean pushed Sam to the ground and doused him with holy water. “What the –? I'm not a demon!” Sam said. Dean followed the holy water up with Borax. “Or a Leviathan. What –“ 

Dean grabbed Sam’s arm and dragged a knife over the skin. “Or a shifter. Good. My turn. Come on. Let's go,” he said as he held the bottles out to Sam. 

“I don't need to. I know it's you,” Sam tried to tell him.

“Damn it, Sammy!” Dean snapped, splashing the holy water and borax on himself. “Come on!”

“No! Dean, can I just say hello?”

Dean rolled his eyes and dragged the blade over his arm himself before he smiled and said, “All right. Well... let's do this.”

Sam looked at his brother wryly. “I don't know whether to give you a hug or take a shower.”

Dean laughed as he said, “Come here,” and pulled Sam into a hug. 

Now that the drama was over, Sam felt free to say, “Dude. You're... freakin' alive! I mean, what the hell happened?”

“Well, I guess standing too close to exploding Dick sends your ass straight to Purgatory.”

“You were in Purgatory? For the whole year?” Sam asked incredulously. 

“Yeah, time flies when you're running for your life.”

“Well, how'd you get out?”

“I had a little help,” Dean said, motioning behind him. 

Dean had asked Gabriel to give him some time with his brother before he came out and muddied the waters, so at Dean’s signal he stepped out with a cheery, “Heya Samsquatch.”

“Gabriel?! How did you…you were dead!” Sam said confusedly. 

“Yep. Dead and in purgatory,” Gabriel told him. “Found a stray human wandering around so we made a jailbreak.”

Dean felt more than a little possessive streak at the way Sam was looking at Gabriel with so much gratitude and awe, though whether he was feeling possessive over Sam or Gabriel he couldn’t really say, so he broke up the moment with, “So, Gabriel and I will take this room and you can have that one,” he told Sam. 

“You and Gabriel will…you’re…together?” Sam asked wide-eyed. 

Gabriel blinked for a moment in surprise at the declaration. He hadn’t been sure if what they had would continue back out here, but he wasn’t about to turn it down. After almost four years alone, struggling to stay alive, he just wanted someone to be with. Now that they were out, they could have a real relationship. It was that thinking that led Gabriel to move up to Dean’s side and wrap his arm around the hunter with a cheerful, “Yup.”

“O-okay. Cool. Good. I mean…it’s good that you have each other,” Sam said. 

“So, what have you been up to since I’ve been gone?” Dean asked now that he’d staked his claim. When he found out that Sam had, not only stopped looking for him, but stopped hunting as well, he was livid. That only increased when he heard all the messages that Sam had been ignoring from Kevin, and he practically dragged his brother out to find him, leaving Gabriel behind to start looking for a way to get Cas back from purgatory. “Because ‘I’ don’t give up on people,” he told Sam pointedly. 

Sam and Dean managed to find Kevin and get talked into getting his mother before losing them both at a supernatural auction. At least they were on the run and not in a demon’s hands, though how long that would be the case was anyone’s guess. With that they headed back to Rufus’ cabin and Gabriel. No sooner than they walked in the door, Dean grabbed Gabriel’s arm and dragged him back to the bedroom without a word, missing Sam’s frown at the manhandling of the archangel. 

Dean all but threw Gabriel on the bed and climbed on top of him, kissing him hard and deep. For the first time they were not only in a bed, but also clean and safe and he had every intention of making this one good. He quickly stripped Gabriel’s clothes off, moving his lips to bite and suck over the archangel’s neck as he removed his own clothes before reaching for the lube. This time, he prepped Gabriel a little slower, which was made even easier by the use of lube and it wasn’t long before Gabriel was moaning and begging for more. Dean threw Gabriel’s legs over his shoulder as he slid inside, setting a hard, fast pace from the start and it wasn’t long before they were both crying out their release and Dean collapsed on the bed next to Gabriel. 

“So, I was thinking. Now that you guys are back, we should probably go find my grace,” Gabriel suggested, resisting the urge to curl up to Dean’s side, knowing the hunter wouldn’t like that very much. 

“Don’t you think we have more important things we should be doing?” Dean scoffed. “You know, like finding Kevin, getting Cas out of purgatory, stuff like that? You can live without your powers for a while.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course,” Gabriel said biting his lip. He didn’t want to argue. Not right now. Maybe later he could bring it up again when Dean was in a better mood.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Descriptions of an abusive relationship in this chapter.

Once they left the bedroom, Gabriel went to sit on the couch to watch some television, but Dean just snapped at him, “That’s not gonna find Cas.”

Gabriel sighed, and got up, heading back to the computer to see what kind of obscure texts and ancient information he could track down. “Dean!” Sam scolded. 

“What? Saving Cas should take precedence over watching tv don’t you think?” 

“He’s right,” Gabriel cut in before an argument could start. He should have known better. 

Dean fucked Gabriel into the mattress every night they were together, but outside the bedroom, there was nothing, and it was starting to get Gabriel down. He knew it was because he was slacking. He hadn’t found a way to spring Cas yet, and Dean had always been rather impatient. 

Gabriel gave it a few more weeks before he brought up the idea of going for his grace again, and Dean’s response was, “Why don’t you try worrying about saving the people we’re supposed to be saving before worrying about yourself for once?” so Gabriel dropped it and retreated further into his shell. Part of him was wondering if it was worth it, but he couldn’t handle being along again. He really couldn’t, and if he left, then he would have no one. And he had promised to save Cas, after all. 

Things just continued getting worse though. As less and less progress was made, Dean just got more and more frustrated and it was Gabriel who took the brunt of the frustration. Sam had tried to stick up for him a few times, but that just seemed to make things worse, and made Gabriel jump to Dean’s defense. Gabriel didn’t want Dean to think that he was complaining about him behind his back after all. Besides, Dean had this way of wording things in a manner that disagreeing with him would be stupid. 

It was two months before Gabriel brought up going after his grace again, and this time pointed out that his human mind didn’t work nearly as well as his archangel mind and he couldn’t access all of his knowledge like this. That just set Dean off though. “How dare you use Cas to justify your selfishness?” he snarled and drew back and punched Gabriel, knocking him to the ground before storming out. Gabriel just laid there for a moment, feeling the tears prickling his eyes before he got up and hastily wiped them away as there was a knock on the door. 

He walked out like nothing was wrong, only for Sam to gasp. “Gabriel! What…” he grabbed Gabriel’s chin and turned his face before Gabriel slapped his hand away. “He hit you?” Sam asked aghast. 

“It doesn’t matter, Sam,” Gabriel said firmly. “Drop it.”

Sam was barely holding on to his temper by this point, but he refused to lose it at Gabriel. Not now. Instead he just went to get some ice for him to put on his eye and went out looking for Dean. He spotted his brother pacing at the edge of the woods and he walked over and shoved him hard into a tree. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sam snapped at Dean. 

“Me?! What’s wrong with you?” Dean asked frustrated. 

“You hit him!” Sam said heatedly. 

“Went crying to you did he,” Dean scoffed. 

“No. He didn’t. He didn’t say a word and told me to drop it when I asked,” Sam tried to defend Gabriel against another dose of Dean’s temper. 

“That’s because he knows he deserved it,” Dean told him. “You haven’t seen him fight, Sam. He could wipe the floor with me if he wanted to. He takes it because he knows he deserves it.”

“Are you even listening to yourself!?” Sam yelled shocked. “Gabriel barely even speaks anymore, because every time he does you snap at him!”

“You know what, Sammy? He’s a big boy. If he doesn’t like it, he can leave. He doesn’t need you fighting his battles for him,” Dean said heatedly. 

Sam sputtered at him for a moment before he collected himself enough to ask, “What the hell happened to you down in purgatory?” This wasn’t his brother. Not at all. 

“What happened?” Dean scoffed. “What happened is that I spent every moment of every day fighting for my life for a whole fucking year. I barely even managed to pause for a nap every now and then. Then Gabriel makes me leave my best friend behind, and I come back to find out that you never even looked for me. That’s what happened.”

Sam just gaped at him for a second before he said, “You know what, Dean. You need to get your head out of your ass before you lose him for good, and I’ll be damned if I lift a finger to help you,” he said as he spun and stormed back to the house, finding Gabriel sitting at the computer holding the ice over his eye. A few minutes later Sam heard the Impala spinning out of the drive and he sighed. He turned to Gabe. “Come on and take a break Gabriel. Watch some TV with me.”

“It’s fine, Sam. I need to keep looking,” Gabriel said emotionlessly. 

“No. You need a break. You’ve been working non-stop for months. If you keep going like this you’re going to burn out and then you won’t be any good to anyone.”

“I’m fine,” Gabriel said. “Dean…”

“Fuck Dean,” Sam snapped, wishing he hadn’t when he noticed Gabriel’s wince. “I’m sorry. Just…forget Dean for a minute. I won’t tell him. Just come take a break,” Sam coaxed. Gabriel finally sighed and got up, going to sit next to Sam on the couch. When Sam reached out to pull the ice away to check on his eye, Gabriel flinched back from the movement, just highlighting to Sam how bad things really were. “Why do you let him treat you like that?” Sam asked gently, his hand on Gabriel’s chin, turning his face to see better. 

“Because it doesn’t matter,” Gabriel told him. He had long come to the conclusion that it was just how things were. If you didn’t want to be alone, you just had to take the good with the bad. It was how things were in heaven, how things were with the pagans, that was just life. His complete forced solitude in purgatory had just driven home the fact that he couldn’t stand to be alone anymore. 

“Of course, it matters,” Sam said gently, letting his face go as he put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “You don’t deserve that.”

“It’s better than the alternative,” Gabriel said in almost a whisper. 

“Better than what alternative?” Sam asked. He didn’t get an answer. “Gabriel?” Still nothing. Gabriel’s eyes were glued to the television. “You should leave,” Sam told him, before noticing how he tensed up and started to shake at the mere thought of it. “Okay. Or not,” he said quickly, trying to calm Gabriel down. Obviously, that was the wrong tact to take here, no matter how true it was. He resolved to try and help as much as he could though, not that he knew what all he could possibly do, but he had to try. 

It was almost two hours before the rumbling engine of the Impala was heard in the cabin and Gabriel scrambled off the couch back to the computer just in time as Dean came storming in the door and dragged Gabriel off to the bedroom, leaving Sam helpless to do anything. He usually went and took a walk when they started going at it, but he couldn’t bring himself to this time. As little as he wanted to hear his brother having sex, he felt like he needed to be close enough to hear if Gabriel cried for help. If he did, then brother or not, Sam would step in and put a stop to all of this, even if it meant beating his brother senseless. As long as Gabriel didn’t want help though, Sam felt like his hands were tied. That didn’t help the sick feeling rolling in his gut as he heard Gabriel begging for more as the telltale sounds of flesh slapping against flesh echoed through the cabin. 

Soon after, Gabriel came out of the room, and returned to his usual spot at the computer, Dean following a few minutes later, with a smug look at Sam.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! More abusive relationship and mentions of rape (no details)

The next few weeks were pretty rough. Gabriel often showed up with new bruises, but nothing major. Sam kept trying to talk to him, but Dean rarely left them alone to give him a chance and Gabriel was going deeper and deeper into his shell. Finally, something broke. Cas came back. Dean grabbed him in a tight, relieved hug the second he walked in, and only Sam noticed Gabriel’s face fall briefly for a moment before he plastered a happy smile on it. Dean probably would have accused him of not wanting Cas back, but Sam knew what was wrong. In all the time they’d been together, Sam had never once seen Dean hug Gabriel, much less so warmly. It wasn’t until Dean said, “I’m so glad you’re back. No thanks to Gabriel,” that the archangel couldn’t sit there anymore, and he got up and walked out the door. 

Sam shot a glare at his brother and followed Gabriel out, finding him leaning against a tree near the woodline facing away from the house. He stepped up behind Gabriel and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Gabriel. Dean’s an ass,” he said gently. 

“No. He’s right. I couldn’t do anything. No matter what I tried, I was useless,” Gabriel said in a haunted voice, and Sam could hear the waver in it that said he was either crying or close to crying. 

Sam sighed sadly and pulled Gabriel deeper into the woods, out of sight of the house, and wrapped him in a warm hug. “You did everything you possibly could, Gabriel. You worked yourself to the bone, trying to find a way. I don’t know how Cas came back, but I doubt it’s anything good. It’s not your fault and you’re far from useless,” Sam assured him. 

Gabriel froze as soon as he was pulled into a hug before he finally let loose everything that had been building up in him for months and really let himself cry, and Sam just held him tighter. He knew that Gabriel needed this. It was quite a while before they heard Dean calling them and Gabriel stepped away and wiped his face hastily and turned back towards the house, Sam following sadly. 

After that, things were both better and worse. Cas took some of Dean’s attention off Gabriel, giving Sam a chance to talk to him and try pulling him out of his shell. On the down side, when Dean’s attention was on Gabriel, his attitude was even worse. It seemed like the more time he spent with Sam the worse he had it with Dean and Sam was nearly at the end of his rope. He didn’t know what else to do. Things came to a head one day when Sam got back from shopping to find Gabriel sitting on the couch with a large bottle of whiskey that he’d apparently already had quite a bit of. What really made him stop in his tracks was the look of Gabriel’s face. He’d had a few bruises here and there, but never anything like this. He looked like he’d been a punching bag. “God, Gabriel. What happened?” Sam asked dropping the groceries in the floor and rushing over to him. 

“Leave it, Sam,” Gabriel said swatting his hands away. 

“No. I’m not leaving it. Not this time. What happened?” Sam asked. 

“It’s stupid. It’s my fault,” Gabriel slurred. 

“No, it’s not,” Sam said firmly. 

“Yeah. It is. I know that he doesn’t like being told no and…”

“He didn’t,” Sam interrupted. “Tell me he didn’t,” Sam begged, but Gabriel just looked away. “That bastard,” Sam growled. “He’s gone too far this time. Where is he?” 

“He went for a walk to clear his head. Cas went after him,” Gabriel told him. “I don’t know where.”

“I’ll find him,” Sam said getting up, but Gabriel’s hand on his arm stopped him. It was the first time Gabriel had ever initiated a touch. 

“Please don’t. I just…don’t want to be alone right now. Don’t go?” Gabriel asked in a small voice. 

Sam knew that he never would have said that if not for the alcohol, but how could he say no anyway. “Okay. I won’t go,” he said softly, reaching a hand out to pull Gabriel into a hug, pulling back when Gabriel flinched away from him. It had been months since Gabriel flinched away from him. He wanted to kill Dean. Instead he just gave Gabriel his space and reached for the bottle himself too. 

Half an hour later they were both well on their way to being smashed, and Sam reached out for Gabriel again, and this time the currently-human archangel didn’t flinch away, and Sam ran a gentle hand through his hair. “You should leave him,” Sam said softly. 

Like the last time Sam suggested that, Gabriel tensed up at the thought, but he didn’t start shaking or seem close to losing control, but he said, just as softly. “I can’t be alone.”

“You don’t have to be,” Sam said, just drunk enough to lean closer. He’d long had feelings bubbling for Gabriel, but wouldn’t have dared act on them. No matter how much of an ass Dean had been there were lines that a brother should never cross. Now though, between what Dean had pulled and the alcohol, he was feeling much less inhibited. “I could go with you,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over Gabriel’s cheek. 

Gabriel sucked in a sharp breath and turned to look at Sam, just in time for Sam’s lips to come into contact with his. It was nothing like any kiss from Dean had ever been. It was soft and gentle and sweet. It was like heaven. Like coming home, and he never wanted it to end. Even the pain of his split lip didn’t take away from the magic of the moment, but then Sam was pulling back, and some form of awareness flitted back into his eyes. “Oh god. Gabriel. I-I’m so sorry,” he said frantically. In his mind he was no better than his brother at the moment; making unwanted advances on Gabriel while he was hurt and vulnerable and not in his right mind. 

Gabriel felt the tears prickling his eyes, even as he said, “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” For one brief moment, Gabriel had felt something he’d been missing for so long. Longer than he could remember, and now it was gone and he felt more alone than he ever had. 

“Shit. Dean. Dean is gonna…Look, I’ll talk to him. I’ll take full responsibility. I’ll make sure he doesn’t take this out on you, Gabe. I swear. I’m sorry,” Sam babbled. 

“It’s fine, Sam. Really. Just forget it,” Gabriel said quickly. He didn’t know how much longer he could sit here listening to Sam apologizing for the best moment of his life. Despite what Sam had said, he knew that he would never leave his brother. It was the alcohol talking. After the lengths he’d gone to in order to save his brother there was no way he’d turn his back on him now. Not for long anyway. And then Gabriel would be right back to square one. No, he could make this thing work with Dean. He had to. 

“Yeah. Okay. Come on. We need to go find Dean. The three of us need to have a little talk,” Sam said, unwilling to stand by any longer. He was going to give his brother an ultimatum and kidnap Gabriel if he had to, but he couldn’t just sit here, and watch Dean destroy him any longer. He just couldn’t.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gabriel said emotionlessly.

“Well, I do,” Sam said taking Gabriel’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “Please?” Sam begged, and Gabriel sighed and nodded. 

They started walking towards the woods and Sam heard them before he saw them, and please let his ears be wrong. He would have turned back then, but he could see by the look on Gabriel’s face that he heard it too. Turning back would just leave him wondering forever if it was really what it sounded like, so Sam pulled Gabriel on towards the sounds, stopping short as they caught sight of Dean and Cas. Cas’ back was against the tree, his legs wrapped around Dean’s waist as Dean fucked him slow and deep. Gabriel sucked in a sharp breath, alerting the two to his presence. Dean had apparently been too close to care because he just thrust a few more times into Cas before stilling with a moan, and that was the cue for Gabriel to turn and run. 

Part of Sam wanted to go after Gabriel, but the bigger part of him wanted to take Dean apart with his bare hands first and he let that part win. At least for the moment, as he stalked over to Dean, who was still trying to do up his pants and punched him, hard. Dean stumbled back into a tree and quickly found himself pinned there by an irate Sam. “You fucking bastard! I’ll fucking kill you!” he snarled. “Beating and raping him wasn’t enough, you have to go fucking around behind his back too?!”

“Like he wasn’t getting his own on the side?” Dean snapped. “Hell, the second Cas got back you two disappeared off somewhere.”

“He was upset because you do nothing but shit on him all the time. I went to calm him down. We have never slept together and neither of us would have ever done that to you,” Sam yelled, aiming another punch at his brothers face before burying his other fist in his gut. Dean tried to push him off and get an angle to hit him back, but the tree behind him worked against him. Sam raised his arm to hit him again, and that was apparently enough for Cas because he grabbed Sam’s arm before it could connect and pulled it back. 

“Enough, Sam,” Cas said firmly. 

“You know what? Fuck you too, Cas. You knew Dean and Gabriel were together. You’ve been around to see Dean tearing him apart just as much as I have, and you still pull this shit? I’m done with you both. I would say I hope you have a nice life but…well…I don’t,” Sam snapped before turning and running in the same direction Gabriel had. He knew that Gabriel wouldn’t have gotten far. He couldn’t have gotten far. Not in his state.


	5. Chapter 5

As Sam suspected, he hadn’t been running long when he found Gabriel on his knees with his arms wrapped around his stomach as he struggled to breathe. Sam fell to his knees behind him and pulled him gently back against his chest, running one hand softly through his hair. “I’m sorry, Gabriel,” Sam whispered as the smaller man sobbed. Once Gabriel was all cried out, Sam said, “Come on, Gabe. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Yeah. We probably should go back,” Gabriel said defeated, assuming Sam meant get out of the woods and back to the house. 

“The hell with that. We’re going back long enough to grab Rufus’ old truck and go,” Sam told him. 

“You can’t…can’t leave your brother,” Gabriel said, sniffling a bit. 

“Let me tell you something, Gabriel. That…THING that came back from purgatory…that’s not my brother. To be honest, I despise him with a passion. If Cas hadn’t pulled me off of him, I might’ve killed him back there. No. My brother died in purgatory. I’m leaving, with or without you. I’m asking you, please, come with me?” Sam had every intention of kidnapping him if he had to, but hoped it wouldn’t come to that. 

“O-okay,” Gabriel said weakly. 

“Good,” Sam said with a smile, helping Gabriel to his feet. “Any idea where we can go?” Sam asked wryly. If he had to burn one of his cards to get a motel he would, but he kinda hoped that Gabriel had another option. 

“Maybe we could…” Gabriel started hopefully before he stopped and said, in a slightly more desolate tone, “I have a safe house near here.”

“What were you gonna say first?” Sam asked curiously. 

“Nothing. Just a stupid idea,” Gabriel told him. 

“Gabriel?” Sam asked, trying to prod him into an answer, but Gabriel didn’t respond so, he just sighed and dropped it. For now. It would take some time to pull Gabriel out of his shell. He could be patient. 

It took Sam a few minutes to get the old truck started before he started driving to Bismark. It wasn’t until they were pulling in the drive that Sam realized just how much Gabriel must hate the idea of being alone if he stayed in that cramped dusty cabin with an abusive asshole instead of coming to this beautiful mansion. Gabriel led them inside, and down to the basement first where he pulled out a few duffle bags full of cash and tossed one to Sam. “You don’t have to stick with me if you don’t want to,” he told Sam. 

Sam blinked at him for a moment before stepping over to pull him into a hug. “I want to, Gabriel. Really.”

Gabriel gave a little sniffle before he stepped away, headed back upstairs. He wasn’t sure how to deal with touch right now. Even when Sam was putting him back together after one of his and Dean’s fights he rarely touched him beyond a hand on his shoulder or his arm. He’d only hugged him a few times and always when he was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. He showed Sam to one of the bedrooms on the second floor and then went into his own. He needed to get some sleep. It had been a very long and emotional day. 

The next morning, Gabriel woke up early and drug himself downstairs to cook breakfast, trying to do so as quietly as he could. He knew how pissed Dean would get when got woke up. When Sam found his way down about halfway through, Gabriel winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t wake me, Gabe. It’s fine,” Sam said with a yawn. “Got any coffee?” 

Gabriel pointed to the coffeepot and Sam made his way over and poured himself a cup, as he sat to wait on the food and wake up a bit. When Gabriel slid a plate over to him and sat down himself, Sam brought himself to the present for conversation. “So, we should talk about yesterday,” he said hesitantly. He knew that bottling everything up wouldn’t be good for Gabriel, but he still hated making him go through it again. He definitely wasn’t expecting the reaction he got though. 

Gabriel sighed sadly. “You want to go back don’t you.”

“What? No!” Sam said, now fully awake. “I meant everything I said yesterday, Gabriel. Including the fact that I want to stick with you. If you want me to, of course.”

“Then what do you want to talk about?” Gabriel asked. 

“Dean and…and Cas,” Sam told him, and he saw Gabriel’s knuckles turn white as he gripped his fork too tightly. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gabriel said coldly. 

“I know. But keeping it all inside isn’t good for you,” Sam prodded. When Gabriel still didn’t say anything, Sam tried again. “Come on, Gabe. Talk to me. Yell if you need to. Throw things. Whatever. Just let it out.”

“Fine. You want me to talk? Fine. It was bad enough knowing that Dean would do that to me, but Cas? My own brother? And don’t think I didn’t notice how sweet and gentle Dean was being with him too. Everything he never was with me. I’ve done everything he ever asked of me. Tried so hard to be what he wanted, but it was never good enough, was it? I was never good enough,” Gabriel had started off frustrated, then loud, and at the end he tapered into barely a whisper as he choked back a sob. Sam suddenly wished he had waited until after breakfast to do this when Gabriel’s plate flew at the wall and shattered, flinging food everywhere before he collapsed back in his seat, with his head in his hands.

“YOU were always good enough, Gabriel,” Sam said gently, putting a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “It was never about you. Dean was not only an asshole, but an idiot for not seeing how great you are. As far as Cas…I know it doesn’t justify it. Nothing could, but I would wager that Dean told him it wasn’t a big deal. Dean thought you and I were sleeping together, and probably told Cas that to convince him. As far as him not doing anything about Dean’s treatment of you, all I can say is that he’s always taken Dean’s bullshit himself, so probably didn’t even care.”

“He probably just figured it was normal. Things in heaven are pretty much just as fucked up. That was why I left,” Gabriel told him. 

“Still. He’s spent enough time on earth that he should know better,” Sam said, not willing to let him off so easily. For any of it. 

“And who has his main influence been? The guy who treats him like dirt, too,” Gabriel pointed out. No, he didn’t hold it against Cas for not standing up for him. Just for fucking his boyfriend. 

“We’ve all let Dean get away with far too much for far too long,” Sam told him. “And I’m sorry you had to take the brunt of it.”

“Why are you sorry? I could have stood up for myself if I’d wanted to,” Gabriel pointed out. He hated the thought that he might need to be ‘rescued’. 

“Then why didn’t you?” Sam asked pointedly. 

“Because it was still better than being alone,” Gabriel said softly, looking down at his hands. 

“I would have gone with you, Gabriel,” Sam said, running his hand through Gabriel’s soft hair. “For months, I’ve only stuck around because I was worried about you. I’d been waiting for you to want to leave so that I could get you out of there.”

“Why, Sam?” Gabriel asked wearily. “Why do you care?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said quickly, and Gabriel just gave him a hard look. Sam sighed. He knew that if he was asking Gabriel to open up to him then he would have to do the same. This wouldn’t work any other way. “Okay, but first I want to say that I’m not asking for anything here okay? I don’t want anything more than you WANT to give. I mean really want. All I’m asking for is the opportunity to help you.” Gabriel narrowed his eyes suspiciously and nodded slowly, wondering where this was going. “IcarebecauseIloveyou,” Sam said very quickly. So quickly that Gabriel was silent for a long moment trying to pull apart the words in his head. 

“Since when?” Gabriel finally asked. 

“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged. “I only realized it the first time Dean hit you and I wanted to wring his fucking neck.”

“You never came for me. After I died,” Gabriel pointed out. 

“I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know where angels went when they died. Hell, I didn’t even know purgatory existed until Cas tried to swallow all the souls,” Sam told him. “If I’d known, I would have come for you. Even before I loved you. You died for me, Gabriel. I would have done anything to take that back.”

“You didn’t come for your brother,” Gabriel pointed out. 

“Because I didn’t know where he was either, though I did have some idea. I had no idea where to start getting him out either, and besides. We made a pact that we wouldn’t go trying to save each other after stuff like this anymore. Not when it all tended to go so wrong,” Sam told him. “Not that I would have just grabbed you and left him there. I’d have tried to get both of you if I was going. I mean…”

“And if you had to choose? Before he came back a jerk, I mean?” Gabriel asked, trying to use an obvious question to gauge whether or not Sam was lying to him. 

“I don’t know,” Sam said honestly. “I really don’t. Leaving either of you would have haunted me forever. Now though? He can go fuck himself. I wish I could just chuck him back in.”


	6. Chapter 6

Gabriel blinked at Sam for a moment before he leaned over and kissed him, desperately wanting to feel Sam’s lips against his again. Sam kissed him back for a moment, raising a hand to his cheek, before he pulled away, holding Gabriel there, their foreheads together. “We can’t, Gabriel. Not now,” Sam whispered, and Gabriel tried to pull away, but Sam just held him there. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Gabriel. I want to. More than anything. But you’re hurting and vulnerable right now, and I just…I’d feel like I was taking advantage of you. If this is still what you want when you’re feeling better, I swear I’ll be here.” He finally managed to pull himself away to look into Gabriel’s eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, Gabe. Not unless you want me to. I’ll still be here when you’re ready.”

Gabriel felt his eyes filling with tears as he nodded. He wasn’t sure if they were tears of frustration or tears of happiness. He’d finally found something that made him happy and it was being taken away. At the same time, the fact that Sam wanted to make sure that he was ready. That he wouldn’t regret it. It filled him with a kind of hope that he hadn’t felt in millennia. Sam promise to be here. To wait for him…it meant everything. As did the fact that he said he loved him. In the year and a half that he and Dean had been together, those words had never been uttered. Sam had, in less than 24 hours, given him more joy than Dean had during their entire relationship. “I’m sorry I’m so broken,” Gabriel whispered sadly. 

“Hey. Gabe,” Sam said running a hand through Gabriel’s hair and giving a light tug to get him to look up at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. At all. Got it,” he said with an encouraging smile. Gabriel gave a slow nod. He didn’t really believe that, but he would humor Sam on the matter. “Now. Do you want to tell me where you really wanted to go last night?” Sam asked hopefully. 

“It’s not important,” Gabriel said quickly. 

“Maybe not. And maybe I won’t want to go. But I still want to know what you want. No matter how silly it may seem. Please Gabriel? At least let me feel like I’m making some progress here?” He knew that was a low blow, but he got the feeling that whatever it was happened to be far more important than Gabriel was letting on. 

Gabriel sighed. “I was just thinking…maybe we could go…find my grace. See? Stupid.”

Sam blinked at him for a moment in shock. “You think that’s stupid? If that’s a possibility, why haven’t we done it before now?” Gabriel just shrugged, and his demeanor at that question told him everything he needed to know. “Dean. Of course. He could smack you around if you were back to full power,” Sam growled before he shook off the anger creeping up in him. “Come on. Let’s go pack a bag. I’m guessing we’ll find it in Indiana?” 

“Yeah. It would have landed near where I died,” Gabriel told him. “You really don’t mind?” Gabriel asked hopefully. 

“Of course not,” Sam said earnestly. “It’s a part of you and you deserve to have it back, no matter what my asshole brother thought.”

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. If Sam had started going on about how much good he could do with it, or how useful it would be, then it might have hit him harder, but Sam wanted him to have it back because it was a part of him. He didn’t doubt those other things had something to do with it too, but the first response was usually the most important, and that warmed Gabriel more than he could say. 

Once they got outside, something else struck Sam. “I don’t suppose you’ve got another car or something around here do you? I don’t know if Rufus’ old wreck is up to the trip.”

“I don’t. But I can buy you one,” Gabriel offered. He was pretty loaded after all.

Sam blinked at the very obvious show of money, not to mention the wording. “No. You can buy YOU one. I’m just along for the ride.” He knew he’d probably end up using it more often than Gabriel once he had his wings back, but it was the principle of the thing. He wanted to make it clear to him that he didn’t have to buy him things or give him things or anything else to keep him around. He would suggest just renting a car if that didn’t take far more red tape than they could deal with. They would have to have valid licenses that passed more than a cursory check, proof of income, proof of address, credit cards that could take a large deposit. At least buying one they could put cash in hand and no one would care. Especially if they hit a used car lot. 

“Okay, but since I can’t drive, you can pick the car,” Gabriel finally agreed after a few minutes thought. He got what Sam was saying, and knew it was just the principle of the thing that he was objecting to. Like he would have any need of a car after this. 

“With your input,” Sam agreed. He intended to be driving Gabriel around plenty in the future, so he wanted one that the archangel liked too. Gabriel nodded in acceptance of that deal and they got in Rufus’ old truck and Sam headed to the nearest used car lot and they drove away an hour later in a nice 2009 Toyota Corolla, headed for Indiana. Since Gabriel couldn’t drive and insisted on stopping for breaks so that Sam wouldn’t overtax himself, they stopped overnight at the halfway point before continuing on. 

The closer they got to the old run down hotel, the more jittery Sam got, though he tried to hide it. This was where Gabriel died. Where Lucifer had almost had them. Where Gabriel sacrificed his very life to allow them to escape. “Why did you do it?” Sam couldn’t help but ask. 

“Do what?” Gabriel asked at the sudden break to the tense silence. 

“Why did you sacrifice yourself for us that day?”

Gabriel shrugged sheepishly. “You have to understand, Sam. I always surrounded myself with the dregs of humanity. Even the hunters that usually tracked me down were pretty much scum. You two…you showed me the best of humanity. You gave me hope and that…that meant something. When push came to shove, I couldn’t just walk away.”

“I heard you were a good fighter. Better than…than me,” Sam said, not willing to mention Dean, even if Gabriel had. “How did he manage to get the best of you?” Sam asked. 

“He might not have if I actually fought him. That wasn’t about a fight. That was about buying time,” Gabriel told him. 

“Why?” Sam asked brokenly. “Why wouldn’t you fight? Even for your life. You could have…” Sam cut himself off. Gabriel didn’t need any recriminations about what he could have saved. 

“I could have destroyed the world,” Gabriel said pointedly, knowing exactly what Sam cut off. “I’m an archangel, just like Michael. Why would you think the death toll would have been any better if I were the one to take him on?”

Sam sucked in a sharp breath at that. All those times they were on Gabriel about fighting. About standing up to his family. They thought he was just being cowardly. Even Sam had thought that, as much as he hated to admit it. But he wasn’t. He was trying to save lives. He was working towards the same cause that they were. “So, you just…what…went in there as a distraction to let us get away? You intended to die?” Sam asked. 

“Well, I intended to try for a cheap shot and replace myself with a clone for Luci to kill if I failed, but he caught me out before I was ready. He spotted the clone and took out my real body, and I didn’t have time to pull a switch without a fight,” Gabriel told him. He wasn’t suicidal after all. “Besides, I had hoped that he wouldn’t go through with it. He WAS my favorite brother once upon a time.”

“I’m sorry, Gabriel. I never should have pushed you to stand up to him. I didn’t think,” Sam said sadly as they pulled up to the hotel. 

“It wouldn’t have mattered if you pushed or not,” Gabriel told him, squeezing his hand. “I think I know where my grace landed,” he said a moment later, trying to change the subject. 

Sam looked up and snorted in amusement. “You think?” He looked at the tall majestic oak tree standing straight out of the middle of the rubble. He wondered how no one noticed a tree like that growing what should have been hundreds of years in just five years, but then reminded himself that people rarely paid attention to such things. “I assume you know how to get it out? Because I don’t.”

“Yeah. I know,” Gabriel told him. “I just need to touch it. My grace will always be drawn back to me”

“Let’s do this thing then,” Sam said with a grin. 

“You should probably drive away first,” Gabriel said wryly, as he opened the door. “At least this is a deserted street.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll come back in a little while,” Sam told him. 

“Don’t bother. I’ll come to you,” Gabriel said. 

“I’m warded remember? You won’t be able to sense me,” Sam reminded him. 

“Oh yeah. Forgot. Okay. Drive away for at least five minutes, wait at least five more, and then come back. You sure about this?” he couldn’t help but ask. 

“Of course, I’m sure,” Sam said honestly. 

Gabriel nodded before getting out and walking over to the tree, looking up at it, as he waited for Sam to leave.


	7. Chapter 7

Gabriel waited the five minutes after Sam drove away full of trepidation. He hadn’t told Sam about the possibility of his grace rejecting him if it thought he was too weak. When the time came, he tried to push all those doubts away and think about Sam. Sam made him feel strong again. Made him feel whole. Sam WANTED him strong and whole. He let those feelings fill him up and then placed his hand on the tree, letting out a sigh of relief as he could feel his grace flowing back into him lighting up a beacon that could probably be seen for a mile at least. It took a few minutes before he had it all and he stumbled back, breathing heavily, as he readjusted to the use of his grace and the healing of his injuries. 

When Sam got back, Gabriel was leaning against one of the last standing walls of the hotel with something at least somewhat close to his old smirk on his face. When Sam got back, he got out of the car and walked over to look Gabriel over, but Gabriel just grabbed him in a kiss. When Sam pulled back with a warning, “Gabriel…”

“I know, Sam. And I get it. I just want one little celebratory kiss,” Gabriel said with a little more vulnerability than he wanted to show. 

Sam softened at that and leaned over to pull Gabriel into a soft, gentle kiss, but didn’t move to deepen it, before he pulled back, brushing a hand over Gabriel’s cheek. “Like that?” he whispered. 

“Mhmm,” Gabriel said with a blissful smile on his face before he shook it off and said, “Okay. So, you wanna head back to the last safe house or grab one nearer to here or go somewhere else?” 

“It doesn’t really matter to me, really, but what about all that money at the other safe house,” Sam asked. 

“I have just as much at all my other bolt holes too,” Gabriel told him. 

“I don’t…but…there had to have been close to a million dollars in those bags,” Sam said wide-eyed. 

“Half a million actually. I don’t keep THAT much cash on hand. The rest is in banks,” Gabriel said, greatly enjoying the way Sam was gaping at him. After a few minutes, Gabriel said, “Sammy? We might want to get a move on before anyone comes to investigate that little light show.”

“Um. Yeah. Right. I don’t care where we go. You can just fly us somewhere if you want,” Sam told him. 

Gabriel nodded and snapped his fingers and they were standing in a spacious garage. “Welcome to Casa de Gabriel, Kansas edition,” Gabriel said with a bit of a flourish, once again grabbing a bag of cash and tossing it to Sam. Unlike last time, he didn’t expect Sam to take it and leave, but he still wanted Sam to have money of his own rather than having to ask Gabriel for anything he needed. A few years ago, he might have reveled in having something to hold over the hunter’s head, but now…Now he didn’t want to have any kind of power over anyone. He knew what it felt like on the other side now. 

“You wanna go watch some tv or something?” Sam asked hopefully, and Gabriel nodded, leading him to the living room. As they settled down in front of the television, Sam put an arm loosely around Gabriel, giving him the option and telling him that it was okay. He had no intention of moving a relationship between them forward right now, but he had noticed every time he hugged Gabriel that the archangel craved physical contact, and good physical contact was something that he hadn’t had nearly enough of for a long time. Sam hoped that would help him heal as much as anything else. He smiled when Gabriel curled up to his side contentedly as they whiled away the afternoon in front of the tv. After a while, Gabriel even snapped up some popcorn and candy for them. 

The next morning as they were eating breakfast the wall started to glow and a sigil appeared there. “Gabriel? What’s going on?” Sam asked nervously. 

“It’s a transportation sigil. Someone’s coming through,” Gabriel told him amusedly. When he saw Sam start to get worked up, he said, “Don’t worry Samsquatch. There are very few beings who can get in here without being fried by the wards the second they do, and nothing that can I can’t handle.” 

A moment later, a man stepped through looking around wildly before his eyes settled on the two men standing there. “Which of you is John Winchester?” Sam and Gabriel looked at each other curiously, but obviously they didn’t answer fast enough because the man said, “Please, time is of the essence! Which of you is John Winchester?”

“Uh, neither,” Sam said confused. 

“That's impossible. That's absolutely... What did I do wrong?” the man asked. 

“Who are you?” Sam asked firmly. 

“Not now. I'm thinking,” the man said distractedly. 

Gabriel had been studying the sigil while Sam was talking to him trying to figure things out. “If I may…” Gabriel started. 

The man turned to look at him, seeing him looking at the sigil. “You couldn’t possibly understand the complicated intricacies of such magic,” he said dismissively. 

Sam and Gabriel both burst out laughing at that. “Kid, I wipe my ass with more complicated magic that this little toy you’re playing with,” Gabriel said through his laughter, just as the sigil lit up again. Gabriel grabbed both of their arms and pulled them away from the wall, giving plenty of room for whoever it was to come through. 

A moment later a bloody red-headed woman stepped through with a smirk, but before she could even say anything, what looked like yellow electrical currents shot through her body before a bright white light came off of it and she crumbled to the floor, eyes burnt out. “What…what was that?” the strange man asked with wide eyes, backing away from Sam and Gabriel. 

“Oh, nothing much. My wards here don’t particularly like demons,” Gabriel said smugly. “Now back to your little magic tricks,” he said completely ignoring how he just knocked the little man’s world on it’s axis. “It looks like you did a blood calling spell, but you failed to take into account the fact that your son is dead in this time period, which made it much weaker than it should have been since you were being called to a second generation.”

“He’s dead? Second generation?” he asked trying to keep up with the revelations that were being heaped on him. 

At the same time, Sam asked, “Wait…he’s related to me?” Sam asked in shock. 

“Yep. Your grandfather if I’m not mistaken. Judging by the clothes and the manner of speech, I would guess that he’s from the fifties…and I gotta tell you buddy, you skipped over all the best decades in your little hop…which is about the time that the men of letters were wiped out, who were the only ones to have even that basic understanding of simple magic, so it’s a reasonable assumption,” Gabriel explained. “Of course, since we haven’t actually been introduced that’s all it is,” he said looking pointedly at the man. 

“Henry. Henry Winchester,” he said. 

“Sam Winchester,” Sam told him holding out a hand trying not to get lost in how surreal this was. 

“The archangel Gabriel,” Gabriel said holding out his own hand, which Henry was too busy gaping to take. Gabriel dropped it after a moment, eyes lit up with amusement. 

“So, why did it bring him here instead of to my brother?” Sam asked. He wasn’t willing to even say Dean’s name, but apparently that alone was enough for Gabriel because he winced at the question before putting his ‘company mask’ back in place and answering the question. 

“My guess is that it had something to do with the weakness of the spell. It was having trouble sustaining itself, so when it was being pulled in two directions, it came towards the higher concentration of power that could help power it. I.e. my wards here,” Gabriel told him. “Speaking of, we expecting anyone else through?” 

“N-no,” Henry stammered. 

“Good. Then might as well close the door,” Gabriel said running a hand over the sigil and smearing it. “And take out the trash,” he said snapping his fingers as the demon’s body disappeared. “I think Grandpa could use a little lie-down, Sammy. Why don’t you show him to a room and then we can finish our breakfast?”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam said and Henry followed him upstairs without a word.


	8. Chapter 8

Henry definitely thought having a lie down was a nice idea and proceeded to do just that. Not that sleep was on the menu. No, his mind was being pulled in so many different directions he couldn’t have slept if he tried. His son was dead. He had at least two grandchildren. He was in a house with an archangel. All the ‘secrets of the universe’ that he had dedicated his life to were apparently no more than a joke. The organization that he’d dedicated his life to was extinct. And to top it all off, he had no idea where to go next. Needless to say, it was a long time before he left the room. 

While Henry was resting, Sam and Gabriel were cuddled up on the couch with Gabriel telling Sam the story of the men of letters and his family’s involvement in it. Sam finally realized that he could never have been out of the life for long. With his father’s side of the family as men of letters and his mother’s family as hunters, he had been born into this. There was no escape. That didn’t mean he had to hunt, though. The whole men of letters idea gave him another option at least. One that Gabriel was completely on board with. He liked the idea of Sam being out of the direct line of fire, and promised to help as much as he could. 

By the time Henry came down at dinnertime, they had a pretty decent plan. Of course, the first thing out of Henry’s mouth was, “I have questions.”

“I’m sure you do. Pull up a seat, grab a plate, and we’ll see if we have any answers,” Gabriel said genially. 

“How did my son die?” 

“He was killed by a demon. Well, technically he sold his soul to save my brother’s life. Should have just let him die,” Sam added the last part under his breath. 

“You and your brother don’t get along?” Henry asked. “What do you two do?” 

“Dean’s a hunter…”

“Ah. Enough said,” Henry said with a nod. 

“And I sort of was. I always enjoyed the research more than actually hunting though, so now that I know about it, I was thinking of reviving the men of letters,” Sam said hopefully. 

“Your father…does that mean that he was…my son…became a hunter?” Henry asked distastefully. 

“Yeah. He did. And he forced the life on me and my brother, too. Not that he needed much forcing. I managed to get out once. Went to Stanford and had a nice life before they dragged me back in,” Sam said annoyed. 

Henry breathed a sigh of relief. At least one of his grandsons was smart. Perhaps, with the help of the archangel, they could make this work. He pulled a box out of his pocket. “This is a key. To the bunker. The storehouse of all the accumulated knowledge, artifacts, and technology of the men of letters. If we are going to rebuilt, it should be there.”

He handed it to Sam, who grinned. Both at the acceptance and the promise of goodies. “I say we go check it out tomorrow,” Gabriel suggested. “I’d be happy to revamp the warding for you.”

Henry definitely wasn’t going to turn it down after getting a first-hand look at what the archangel’s warding could do, so he nodded. “It’s in Lebanon Kansas. I can take you there.”

“I know where it is,” Gabriel told him. “I keep an eye on those sorts of things.”

“Oh. Alright,” Henry said caught a little off guard that their secret base was known, but at least it was to an archangel. 

“Little tip though. Nothing screams ‘something important is here’ like heavy warding. If you want to keep a location secret, it’s better to use more subtle wards. Or at least layer the wards under a power dampener,” Gabriel told him.

“I-I’ll keep that in mind,” Henry said. They hadn’t even considered the idea that their wards could be detected, though now that it was mentioned they should have. The rest of the evening, Henry never did find his footing as every question he asked about his family and the world as a whole just knocked him even more for a loop. 

The next day, they checked out the bunker, and Henry and Sam had a tour while Gabriel was redoing the wards and he joined back up with them in the library. Gabriel went and started browsing the shelves, pulling about a third of the books and stacking them on the table. It wasn’t until he was finished and the library looked rather bare that they realized what he was doing when he suggested a bonfire. “You can’t burn those books!” Henry said scandalized. 

“They’re not good for much else other than kindling,” Gabriel joked. “There’s not a single useful fact in any of those books that aren’t in one of the ones still on the shelves, and there is a whole lot of useless and even incorrect garbage besides.”

“Maybe a compromise,” Sam suggested. “How about we just box them up in one of the old storerooms.”

Henry nodded tensely, so Gabriel snapped his fingers and made it happen, and then snapped his fingers again, and the bookshelves were full. “There. Good books with actual accurate and useful information,” he said smugly. 

It didn’t take long for them to agree to move in there. Sam wanted to take over the hunter hotline since Garth had disappeared recently. Gabriel also brought up the fact that he could find the prophet now and could bring him here for protection if Sam wanted, and Sam quickly agreed. He considered calling Dean and letting him know that they had Kevin and that he was safe, but decided against it. Let Dean keep spinning his wheels looking for him. 

When Henry balked at having the hotline run out of the library due to the noise and distraction at which point Sam pointed out that it would be much easier to research if he didn’t have to keep running to and from the phones, Gabriel just created a little alcove in a corner that he soundproofed. 

It took about a week to get everything set up and them all settled in, including Kevin and his mother. The library and main living room and kitchen were used by all, but Gabriel had created smaller living rooms in each of the hallways. One between his room and Sam’s room. One between Kevin’s room and his mother’s room, until Kevin requested his own, as well as a different room. Sam was able to smooth over the ruffled feathers on that one at least. Henry also had his own. That way they didn’t get too cramped and everyone had plenty of privacy which came in very handy in Sam’s attempts to pull Gabriel from his shell. He tended to put on a good act when others were around, and he tried to with Sam, but Sam wouldn’t let him get away with it for long. They spent many an evening curled up on the couch in their own sitting room while they talked or watched television, and Gabriel slowly started to heal. The positive attention was doing wonders for him. 

It took a little over a month before Gabriel felt like he was ready to really give things a shot with Sam, and decided it was time. That night when they were curled up on the couch, he kissed Sam softly. Sam kissed him back for a moment before he pulled back to look in Gabriel’s eyes, trying to figure out if he should be allowing this, and apparently he liked what he saw because he smiled and leaned down for another kiss. He still gave it a few weeks before he let things move on to the bedroom, just to be sure. 

Kevin had managed to translate the tablet for the demon trials, and after Gabriel absolutely forbid Sam to even attempt them, Sam put the word out that they needed a volunteer for them and they quickly had more than one. Seemed that all hunters wanted nothing more than to slam the gates of hell forever, so Gabriel suggested to send them all after hellhounds and the first one to get one got to finish the trials. Sam just shrugged. Made sense to him.

It took almost a year, but finally the gates of hell were closed, and the hunter that won the right to close them, Bucky, died in the process. As soon as Gabriel had told Sam, he made sure that all the hunters knew the dangers and knew that it would cost them their life at the end. Thankfully, most hunters were solitary creatures and thus had no problems volunteering since they wouldn’t be leaving anyone behind. Closing the gates of hell was one hell of a legacy. 

It was two years after the got together when the idea of children came up. Sam’s first question was, of course, “How is that possible?” 

“Well there are a couple ways. See, Nephilim are forbidden by the highest laws, so I would have to be graceless for it. I could turn myself into a woman, remove my grace, you get me pregnant and then I take it back after the baby is born…”

“No. Not an option. I don’t want you to be without your grace for that long,” Sam said firmly. He remembered how Dean had been keeping Gabriel cut off from it, and he didn’t want that to ever happen again. 

“Okay. Option two. I turn you into a woman, remove my grace long enough to get you pregnant and then take it back while you carry the baby,” Gabriel said amusedly. “There are other more human options as well, but only one of us would be genetically related to the child that way.”

“No, I want the baby to be of both of us. I guess I can be the girl and get pregnant,” Sam told him. It was better than asking Gabriel to part with his grace for a long period of time. Over the next few years Sam and Gabriel had two children. A boy and a girl. Camael and Zariel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically the last chapter. There will be a bonus chapter up soon, but if you don't want to read about a rather grisly death, you should stop reading now.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this chapter has a very gory death. This is your last chance to turn back.

Five years after Sam and Gabriel left Dean and Cas:

Dean found himself trapped in what seemed to be a run down house, with a woman leaning over him with a cruel smirk. “Dean Winchester. How long I have been waiting for you to fall into my trap.”

Dean pulled his gun and shot at her as he rolled away, but she just disappeared in a puff of smoke before reappearing just in time for him to roll into her legs. “Look at the little mouse trying to scurry away from the big bad kitty,” she mocked. She snapped her fingers and there was a very large cat bearing down on him. It was definitely big enough to make him nothing more than a mouse, and the room was expanded to give them plenty of room. 

“You’re a trickster!” Dean said as he looked around for a stake or something that could be used as such, keeping one eye on the large cat that was circling him. 

“I’m not just any trickster, kid. I am Raine. Apprentice to Loki. And word has spread of your cruelty to him,” she smirked before reappearing directly in front of him. “You should have known it would be your undoing,” she said coldly as she ran a sharp fingernail down his cheek. 

“You know he wasn’t really Loki right? He was actually Gabriel. The archangel,” Dean tried to bluff his way out of here. He knew that if this really was a trickster it could have and probably would have blocked Cas from coming to his rescue. That seemed to be the wrong thing to say to her though because the next thing he knew he was pinned against the wall with her hand on his throat. 

“You think I don’t know that? You think I care? He was my mentor. My god. He made me what I am. And you will pay for your sins against him,” she snarled before her hand on his throat threw him to the cat who pounced. The next few minutes gave him full sympathy for any mouse that got caught by a cat as it played with him not very gently. The fact that he no longer had any weapons didn’t help. He was bleeding from dozens of cuts and had more bruises than he knew what to do with by the time he heard a strange voice coming from the rafters. 

“Aww. You messed him all up. I wanted to skin him,” he heard from a crow that was flying down from the balcony. “I suppose I’ll just have to take his scalp,” the crow said, digging it’s talons in and pulling hard, and Dean screamed in agony as his skin and hair were pulled away from his head. 

“Now, now Crow. You know how badly head wounds bleed and we don’t want this to end too soon,” the trickster Raine admonished playfully as she snapped her fingers and Dean could both feel and smell his flesh burning as the wounds were cauterized, pulling another agonized scream from him. “You can take his eyes though if you wish,” she told the crow to make her feel better when she seemed almost sad about the criticism. 

That perked her up and she flew back down to Dean, leaving the scalp in the rafters to make a nest out of later. Dean tried to bat the bird away but soon felt sharp teeth sinking into one of his arms from the cat that he’d forgotten about. He still made a good go of it with his good arm until he felt something large and scaly on it and he turned, eyes going wide as he caught sight of a dragon. Not a real dragon either. There was nothing humanoid about this monster. It was more like what humans thought of dragons. Large, rotund, scaly with sharp teeth and claws. That was the last thing he saw though before the crow’s beak plucked his eyes right out of his head prompting another scream. 

The crow flew back up and deposited the not exactly pristine eyes on top of the scalp as she decided to stay out of things as the cat and the dragon fought over the rest of him. There was another scream as the dragon stepped on one of Dean’s legs, turning the bone to powder and pulverizing all the muscle. That prompted the cat to eat the arm it had been holding. Just before the final darkness settled over the hunter, he heard the cold voice of the trickster say, “Perhaps in your next life you should remember, mortal, that inviting the wrath of a trickster will only spell your doom.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By popular request, TTR (Team Trickster's Revenge) has expanded by two members and this is what they were doing while the rest were occupied with Dean. There is also now a facebook page for TTR at https://www.facebook.com/groups/198990697356863/ and there will be more to their story coming soon.

While Raine was destroying the hunter, Astra had her own job. Keeping the angel busy. While they both agreed that Castiel could use some comeuppance as well, the fact that he was nearly as abused as Gabriel stayed their hand for the most part. It would be too much like blaming the victim for both of them. That didn’t mean he got off scot free of course, but it did greatly temper their response. It had taken her days to get the warding right to hold an angel, and she didn’t have enough power to pump into it to hold him for long, even with her sister’s help. It would be long enough though, even if her sister did want longer to play. 

Astra had decided that her part of the job would be well suited to opening the seraph’s eyes. Teaching him right from wrong and showing him exactly what his brother had gone through at the hands of the cruel hunter. The loss of his lover, knowing that he failed to keep him safe…that would be a good enough punishment in the end. She had lured him with the promise of the horn of Gabriel that could unite heaven once again and stop all the in-fighting. It felt fitting, to her, to use an artifact of her mentor as bait. Savannah, the savannah cat sat at her side, and she ran her hand through the soft fur as she waited. 

The seraph stepped into the warehouse and she immediately dropped her cloak and activated the warding, prompting Savannah to begin prowling the edges of the room, on guard for any danger and prepared to stop the angel from escaping herself if necessary. Castiel spun around to look at her, narrowing his eyes. “You think you can hold me?” he asked dangerously. 

“Not for long, angel,” she said distastefully. “But long enough, I hope, to open your eyes.”

“To open my eyes to what?” Cas asked dangerously. 

“To this,” Astra said, waving a hand and calling up some images that she had pulled from her mentor and his beloved’s minds. She thought back to her reunion with Loki, or Gabriel as he went by now. He had called her and her sister a few days after he got his grace back, but they could see that something was wrong. They hadn’t been able to access his memories without his permission of course, but they did manage to corner Sam and wheedle the information from him, copying his memories in the process. They used this knowledge, and their own threats to believe the worst without evidence otherwise, to talk Loki into allowing them to see his memories. 

She turned to watch the angel as he watched the memories of Dean berating Loki, pushing him too hard and when Dean refused to let Gabriel go get his grace, Castiel scrunched up his face in confusion. “Why would he not allow Gabriel to retain his grace? He could have done more with it.”

“He wanted control,” Astra told him. “He wanted Gabriel under his thumb and if he had his power back, Dean would lose his.” She waved a hand again and pulled up the memory of them leaving purgatory. Now that Cas was looking for it, he could see the look on Dean’s face at the idea of Cas giving up his grace forever. He saw where he argued with Gabriel that they should have taken it by force if he didn’t want to give it up, and he couldn’t name the feelings that were welling up in him at that thought. “He wanted the same for you, you see. The fact that you held onto your grace, thanks to Gabriel I might add, saved you from the worst of the hunter’s temper,” she told him, waving her hand again and getting back to the main story as Dean railed at Gabriel and beat him regularly. 

“Why did he not leave? Why did he not fight back?” Castiel asked confused. 

“Because after four years of complete isolation in purgatory, his greatest fear was to be alone again. He would have accepted any treatment no matter how awful, as long as he didn’t have to be alone,” she told him. “Just like another angel who has been cut off from heaven and from his family and has nowhere to turn except the hunter who treats him like crap,” she said pointedly, waving a hand and showing some scenes where Dean had been especially harsh with Castiel instead. 

Cas closed his eyes against the wash of pain as her words hit home. “But Gabriel was cheating on him. With Sam. It wasn’t…”

“Was he really?” Astra said, keeping her temper in check as she waved her hand once again. “This is what they were doing when they were alone together. When Dean’s paranoia and guilty conscience had him making up other stories.” Castiel watched Gabriel crying and Sam trying to calm him down. He watched as Sam tried to pull him out of his shell and instill some self-confidence in him. And he watched as every time progress was made, Dean tore it all back down. “And then he finally crossed a line he couldn’t come back from.” She showed the seraph that final straw. When Dean beat Gabriel bloody and raped him. She showed him the conversation afterwards and even how Sam had kissed Gabriel and then felt so guilty about it they were coming to confess. Castiel watched brokenly as Sam and Gabriel had stumbled upon him and Dean having sex. He saw Gabriel’s face fall and the debilitating heartbreak as he turned and fled. He watched himself stop Sam from beating his brother senseless and wondered what he had ever been thinking. He finally realized the depth of his betrayal. To both his brother and to himself. 

Castiel plopped down on the floor, legs unable to hold him up anymore. He didn’t know what to do. Could he really leave Dean? The hunter had been the only constant in his life for the last ten years. He had been the only one who cared. No. Dean didn’t care. He wanted control. He saw Castiel’s weakness and exploited it. But he had seemed like he cared. He had done a lot for him. He had been there when he needed him most. How could he just turn his back on that? Even if he did, where would he go? Heaven hated him now. He had burned his bridges with Sam and Gabriel. He had lost everything following Dean Winchester and it was too late to turn back. 

Unseen to Castiel, a crow entered the room, whispering a message in Astra’s ear and she nodded before turning to the seraph. As if she knew what he was thinking, Astra put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not too late, you know.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked her, not able to disguise the hope in his eyes. 

“I can’t speak for heaven, but you know that Sam is a very forgiving person. Gabriel is less so, but you are his brother. If you are truly repentant, he will allow you back into his life. He will give you a chance to repair what you broke.”

“Why would he? Why SHOULD he?” Castiel asked sadly. 

“One thing you must understand about Loki…Gabriel…is that family is everything to him. He would do anything for those he considers family. Most angels have lost that consideration from him, but you haven’t.”

“I’ve done more to him than most of them…” Cas pointed out, confused. 

“Perhaps, but you were as much a victim as he was. I am not saying that it would be easy or that he would forgive you right away. You will probably have a rather difficult time of it at first, should you choose to make amends, but if it is worth that hardship to you, then you can find something so much better than anything you’ve ever known on the other side,” she told him. 

“Why are you doing this? Who are you?” 

“I am Astra. My twin sister Raine and I are among those that are fortunate enough to call Loki family. He made us what we are, and we owe him everything. If we can give him some measure of peace, then we will do so.”

“I…I don’t know…” 

“I know. But you have seen the truth now. You are free to go,” she said wiping a hand along the wall to power down the runes. Crow had told her of Dean’s demise. There was no longer any reason to hold him. 

As Castiel left, Savannah stepped back over to Astra. “We let him go?” she asked curiously. The little cat was new enough to her position as familiar that her speech hadn’t yet advanced as far as Crow’s who had been with them for decades. 

“Yes, little one. He has learned his lesson, and his punishment awaits him outside of here,” Astra told her, petting her gently.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Team Trickster's Revenge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251594) by [CaMcPherson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaMcPherson/pseuds/CaMcPherson)
  * [Team Trickster's Revenge Business Cards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13240443) by [CaMcPherson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaMcPherson/pseuds/CaMcPherson)




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